Chapter 14 - Cold Vengeance
The blizzard outside had turned into a full-scale whiteout, howling like a pack of starving wolves around the burning skeleton of Blackwood Manor.
Leaving Leo securely hidden inside a hidden secondary wall safe inside the bunker—armed with an emergency oxygen tank and a direct line to Marcus—Adrian and Clara moved back up toward the ground floor. Adrian had tried to force her to stay with Leo, but Clara had refused with iron defiance.
"Jimmy knows who killed my husband," Clara had hissed, gripping Adrian’s forearm with bruised fingers. "You're going to put a bullet in his head, but not before he tells me the truth."
Adrian had looked at her blazing blue eyes and realized something profound: Clara Bennett was not a damsel in distress. She was a mother who would walk through the fires of hell to protect her cub.
They reached the grand conservatory at the rear of the manor. The glass ceiling had been shattered by falling mortar shells, allowing snow to drift down in thick, ghostly blankets over the marble statues and exotic ferns.
Standing in the center of the conservatory, his back to the shattered French doors, was Jimmy Cole. He had a heavy satchel slung over his shoulder—Adrian’s private ledgers, stolen from the wall safe in the study.
"I wondered when you'd show your face, Boss," Jimmy shouted over the roaring wind. He turned, holding a heavy-caliber revolver, his face twisted into an ugly, triumphant sneer. "You're slipping, Adrian. An old lion getting soft over a waitress and a dead man's bastard."
Adrian stepped forward onto the snow-covered marble, keeping Clara half a step behind his shoulder. "Drop the bag, Jimmy. And I might grant you a quick death."
Jimmy laughed, a harsh, grating bark that echoed off the broken glass. "A quick death? Look around you! Your empire is burned to the ground! The Donovans and the Castigliones bought your docks an hour ago! The whole eastern seaboard belongs to them now!"
"I don't care about the docks," Adrian said coldly, advancing with measured, predatory steps. "Why Julian Bennett?"
Jimmy shifted his gaze to Clara, his smile widening with sickening delight. "You really didn't know, did you, sweet cheeks? Julian Bennett wasn't just some boring number-cruncher. He was the head money launderer for the Irish Syndicate in South Boston!"
Clara gasped, her hand flying to her throat. "That's a lie! Julian worked for a shipping firm!"
"Julian worked for ghosts!" Jimmy snarled. "And five years ago, Julian stole fifty million in bearer bonds from the Syndicate vault before he tried to fake his death! But the Syndicate caught him in that alley and put three in his chest before he could sing about where he buried the keys!"
Jimmy took a step toward Clara, his eyes gleaming with greed. "They thought the bonds were gone forever. Until Julian's old attorney tipped off the Boston mob that Julian left a trust fund for a kid named Leo Bennett. A trust fund encoded inside a childhood keepsake. Leo has the combination, don't he, Clara?"
Clara felt the ground drop from beneath her feet.
*Leo’s silver music box.* The one Julian had given him on the night he died, telling him never, ever to take off the engraved silver backplate.
"Julian didn't die for a hit-and-run," Clara whispered, the horror of five years of deception crashing down upon her. "He died because he was a thief."
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"And now his debt belongs to you," Jimmy sneered, raising his revolver straight at Clara's head. "Boston pays five million for the boy alive, but they didn't say nothing about needing the mother."
Before Jimmy’s finger could complete the trigger pull, Adrian moved.
